Long after everybody was in bed Carley lay awake in
the blackness of the cabin, sensitively fidgeting
and quivering over imaginative contact with creeping
things. The fire had died out. A cold air
passed through the room. On the roof pattered
gusts of rain. Carley heard a rustling of mice.
It did not seem possible that she could keep awake,
yet she strove to do so. But her pangs of body,
her extreme fatigue soon yielded to the quiet and rest
of her bed, engendering a drowsiness that proved irresistible.

Morning brought fair weather and sunshine, which helped
to sustain Carley in her effort to brave out her pains
and woes. Another disagreeable day would have
forced her to humiliating defeat. Fortunately
for her, the business of the men was concerned with
the immediate neighborhood, in which they expected
to stay all morning.

“Flo, after a while persuade Carley to ride
with you to the top of this first foothill,”
said Glenn. “It’s not far, and it’s
worth a good deal to see the Painted Desert from there.
The day is clear and the air free from dust.”

“Shore. Leave it to me. I want to
get out of camp, anyhow. That conceited hombre,
Lee Stanton, will be riding in here,” answered
Flo, laconically.

The slight knowing smile on Glenn’s face and
the grinning disbelief on Mr. Hutter’s were
facts not lost upon Carley. And when Charley,
the herder, deliberately winked at Carley, she conceived
the idea that Flo, like many women, only ran off to
be pursued. In some manner Carley did not seek
to analyze, the purported advent of this Lee Stanton
pleased her. But she did admit to her consciousness
that women, herself included, were both as deep and
mysterious as the sea, yet as transparent as an inch
of crystal water.

It happened that the expected newcomer rode into camp
before anyone left. Before he dismounted he made
a good impression on Carley, and as he stepped down
in lazy, graceful action, a tall lithe figure, she
thought him singularly handsome. He wore black
sombrero, flannel shirt, blue jeans stuffed into high
boots, and long, big-roweled spurs.

“How are you-all?” was his greeting.

From the talk that ensued between him and the men,
Carley concluded that he must be overseer of the sheep
hands. Carley knew that Hutter and Glenn were
not interested in cattle raising. And in fact
they were, especially Hutter, somewhat inimical to
the dominance of the range land by cattle barons of
Flagstaff.